Rowland Institute Library Blog

Two physicists posted a preprint in which they report: “the observed
acceleration of the Universe can produce a universal limit on the total amount
of information that can be stored and processed in the future, putting an
ultimate limit on future technology for any civilization, including a
time-limit on Moore’s Law.” 

That’s it?

(Source: The Quantum Pontiff)

A list of 46 highly thought of freeware utilities.  (Source: Inter Alia)

An article describes how long you can expect CDs to last and how they vary in quality.  (Source: The Shifted Librarian)

(Sigh)… Evidently the readers are “greedy” little applications that keep coming back for more…

I must have misunderstood something in this story….  The headline in the Post says: “Patriot Act Suppresses News Of Challenge to Patriot Act.”  The ACLU filed a lawsuit against the act, “but the case was kept under seal to avoid violating secrecy rules contained in the USA Patriot Act, the ACLU said.” Sounds
like  the provision that you can’t tell patrons when their library
records have been subpoenad under the law.  (Source; Boing Boing)

Update (4/30/04); LLRX has an article
about libraries may risk getting sued for revealing records in response
to PATRIOT Act subpoenas. Evidently AOL revealed a customer’s records
and they are now being sued. “ It turns out that AOL apparently did not closely examine
the search warrant, which was invalid.” (Source: beSpacific)

Finally a blog directory with a significant number of science-oriented
news sources and weblogs.  Categories include natural sciences
(physics, chemistry, astronomy); health and medicine; technology; and
even libraries.  Resources range from news to personal weblogs to
weblogs for institutions and labs. Some are field specific (e.g. mass
spectrometry blog.) Many non-English sites.   A find. 
(Source: Confessions of a Science Librarian)

Scientists explored the correlation between number of hits (or
citations) on an author in Google and the number of papers the author
had posted to an electronic archive.  The sample included about
450 condensed matter physicists. The researchers claim they found that
citation in Google (”fame”) reflects “merit” (as calculated by number
of published papers.)    (Source: PhysicsWeb)

A Boston Globe article examines the persistence of print and the
surprising moderate growth in the number of published books, in spite
of e-book readers, cd-roms, print-on-demand and other phenomena. 

A news article describes how developers collaborate around the world to
refine Linux code.  Rowland’s computational scientist Alan Stern
is mentioned, as it is reported that he posted a solution to a mailing
list. 

beSpacific reports on two
recent Congressional Research Service reports having to do with
dissemination of scientific data and terror and national security
issues: Balancing Scientific
Publication and National Security Concerns: Issues for Congress, by
Dana A. Shea; and